The art of managing viral upper respiratory infections commonly called common colds was not adequate prior to my discovery that frequently administered zinc gluconate lozenges reduce the duration of common colds. Common colds are the most common acute illness in the United States and account for about one-half of all lost school days and lost work days. An estimated one billion colds occur in the United States each year. Thus, there can be no question as to the need for safe, simple, inexpensive, effective and available treatments to minimize or eliminate this important and costly public health problem.
Before my discovery of the effectiveness of zinc gluconate lozenges in reducing the duration of the common cold (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,070), treatment of common colds involved use of symptomatic therapy. Such therapy did not reduce duration of common colds. For example, with or without treatment, duration of 50% of the common colds caused by rhinoviruses remained at 7 days. Primary common colds symptoms are nasal drainage and nasal congestion. Secondary symptoms often accompanying primary symptoms include: headache, fever, myalgia, sneezing, sore throat, scratchy throat, cough and hoarseness. The prior art teaches individual treatment of each symptom as needed to ameliorate symptoms during their association with a common cold, rather than teaches treatment of the common cold to reduce the duration of all symptoms associated with them.